Finn leaned forward and began speaking, his voice deep and steady as he and Alessio became immersed in conversation, but I didn’t hear a word. Not when my gaze slipped down the slope of Finn’s neck and caught the flash of a silver chain beneath his collar.Was that…?My heart rocketed in my chest, my stomachswooping with dangerous hope. A memory flashed in my mind of the night I’d given him the chain. One of the best nights of my life.
“Aiani?” Alessio’s sharp tone cut through the flashback. I blinked, swallowing hard and tearing my gaze from Finn. Alessio’s blue eyes narrowed to slits of warning.
Stay focused. Keep away from his best friend. Business only.
I shifted in my chair, refocusing on the photographs and evidence Finn had gathered against the married American consigliere, Frankie Galiz. There were grainy CCTV images of him entering the sex club he owned. Finn pressed play on a tablet, and a video from a hidden phone showed Frankie in a private room, having sex with a young male sex worker on a sofa.
“How did you get this?” I asked.
“Oliver, the sex worker. We’ve promised to set him up in Italy after this. He’ll have our protection.”
“So, will this be enough? To blackmail Frankie into a meeting?”
Alessio shook his head. “We aren’t going to blackmail him into meeting. If we send him this, we give him time to come up with a plan and to find something on us. We lose our power play. We need to find another way to get Frankie to meet you and Finn. Either we ambush, or we separate him from Joey. Frankie is our target. He’s the one who needs to be persuaded to accept our terms.”
“If it’s Don Joey Galiz who’s the problem, why don’t we just get rid of him? I’ll do it. I’m one of the best snipers you’ve got. Use me.”
“Joey Galiz is a challenge. He never leaves his estate, and we can’t get in. He’s paranoid, as he should be.”
“So what are our terms?” I glanced between them.
“We’re going to propose a partnership deal. We agree to no more bloodshed, and they leave our territories in exchange forlimited rights to one of our ports, while we gain exclusive access to one of their American arms transport lines. We both release any captives on either side,” Alessio said, his tone carrying an edge of authority that challenged me to argue with him. Finn refused to look at me.
I scoffed in disbelief. “You’re joking?”
Neither of them responded; their silence was answer enough.
“That’s fucking bullshit,” I growled, slamming my fist on the table. I’ve always had a short temper, especially when things didn’t make sense to me. “That’s surrender.”
“It’s not surrender, it’s survival,” Alessio replied calmly, yet there was a lethal edge to his tone that warned me to watch myself.
I shook my head, glaring at Finn. “Since when does working with The Americans, the fuckers who killed my cousin, have killed countless soldiers in our streets, stolen and fucked huge deals through our channels, and burned our warehouses—”
“I’m well aware of their crimes against us, Aiani,” Alessio snapped, clasping his hands together and placing them on his desk. His blue eyes had hardened to ice as he stared at me. “But with every attack comes retaliation. Every tortured or murdered soldier under my regime means I take two of theirs. Every channel they bust means I crush a business of theirs. And that only adds to their hatred and bloodthirst for murdering Don Anthony Galiz, four of their highest-ranking soldiers, and taking down their human-trafficking rings, which resulted in the highest number of criminal arrests in American history.”
My lips parted and my eyes widened.Cazzo, I’d heard the rumours. This war started because they had a vendetta against Alessio and blamed him for the plane crash that killed their leader ten years ago, but no one believed it. Rivals make up shit to start wars all the time. But that was a confession from the man himself.
Alessio leaned back in his chair and sighed at the look on my face. Finn shifted uneasily next to me. My gaze snapped to him.
“You knew this?”
He glanced my way and rubbed his chin, avoiding my gaze. “Whether Alessio did it or not makes no difference. They have no proof and have started a war on blind suspicion. But it needs to end.”
“But he did it. Alessio started this war. He’s the reason we are in this mess?”
“If it hadn’t been that, they’d have found something else to start a war over,” Finn argued, but I was already shaking my head. I stood up from my chair and began pacing.
They wanted Alessio dead. That’s what all this was about. But they couldn’t reach him. He’d made himself untouchable in his own territory, so they were trying every other way to take him down. No wonder Finn was so insistent that Alessio couldn’t leave Italy.
“We don’t want a partnership any more than you do, Aiani. I fucking despise the cunts,” Alessio said, pulling me back into the room from my spiralling thoughts. “But Joey Galiz won’t stop. Not until he kills me or someone as important to me as his father was to him. He doesn’t care how it hurts him or his business. He’s vengeful.”
My eyes locked with Alessio, and the message was clear. There had already been attempts on those closest to him. He was a man backed into a corner. My gaze flicked to Finn, and he swallowed.
“They’ve tried to kill you?” My dark eyebrows knitted together over the bridge of my nose as unbridled rage surged through my veins.
“Not directly, but the threat’s there. They killed my main bodyguard while he was off duty. They sent me his head and told me mine would be next unless Alessio gave himself up.”
“And you think it’s a good idea for you to fly to America to try to discuss a peace treaty?” I yelled, my blood boiling because I’d never have gone to Finn for help if I’d known. What the fuck was he thinking?
